


nothing's gonna hurt you, baby

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Eventual Happy Ending, Fluffy Ending, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Sad with a Happy Ending, one-shot that got out of hand
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-22 15:24:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12484752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Bewildered and shivering, Keith struggled to remember what had happened. With horrifying suddenness it flashed in his mind's eye: the mission.The Galra. The bomb. Lance. Lance's kiss. The vicious resolve in his blue eyes as he sacrificed himself for Keith. The stars wheeling around Keith as he drifted through space, watching as the doors closed and Lance's fate was sealed. The smoky, acrid smell of burning hair. The appalling power of the explosion, a wall of fire that had shattered Keith's bones and lacerated him with debris.Lance's death.





	1. Chapter 1

Lance squinted carefully through the sights of his rifle, watching as Keith hurried from cover to cover below him.

From his position lying on a wide cross-beam he could see six Galra drones standing to attention, and three Galra soldiers sitting around drinking nunvil. The docking bay was lofty and wide, illuminated with eerie purple lights, and huge Galra supply freighters were unloading their cargo into the hold.

Keith, bayard drawn, was making his way to the far door while Lance covered him from above. Whenever Lance spotted a drone approaching his teammate he whispered into the comms, and, failing that, took aim. It was a good system. When Keith reached the door Lance would jet-pack his way over the ceiling cross-beams to join him.

Their mission was a dangerous one. The Galra ship they were on was one of the main supply distributors of the quadrant, sustaining Galra plantations and orbit craft all over the system. It was a gigantic behemoth of a ship, reaching what Pidge had estimated to be a third of Earth's mass. The customary Galra black-and-purple, it rose ominously against a backdrop of stars and nebulae. Untouched so far by resistance efforts and guarded heavily, it was a lynchpin of this quadrant's Galra control.

Keith and Lance had been sent to blow it to kingdom come.

Divided between the two of them were enough explosives to reduce a whole planet to rubble. Hunk and Pidge had engineered it with the help of the Olkari, managing to pack earthshattering explosive force into two rucksack-sized discs. Lance could feel the edges digging into his back through his armour, and he swallowed hard. This was one mission they couldn't afford to screw up.

 

Below him, Keith stealthily took down a drone and laid it against a wall before continuing on. His expression was focused to the point of looking constipated, and Lance bit back a smirk. Keith's singleminded determination was something he'd come to grudgingly admire. His stomach was writhing, but Lance had no idea if it was because of the dangerous mission, or because he was on the mission with Keith.

He hated this - the acidic fear that flooded him whenever he spoke alone to Keith, forcing hot, angry words to spill out of his mouth. The tingling anxious flutter whenever they locked eyes, even if Keith's were filled with exasperation. The uneasy anticipation when they were together, even if they were in the same room, and the despondent helplessness when Keith was somewhere else.

These days, being around Keith hurt. Lance supposed unrequited love always did. He longed to touch Keith the way he'd always imagined - running a hand through his dark hair or tracing a slow line from his lips to his collarbone - but he knew he never would. It sounded like a bad love song - Lance felt terrible when Keith was with him, but far worse when he was gone. It didn't help that recently Keith kept placing himself in danger to protect Lance, taking down his opponents or putting himself between Lance and his attackers.

That hurt the most, because Lance knew with a grim certainty that Keith was doing it only because of his duty as a paladin. His duty as a teammate. It wasn't because Lance was special to him or anything.

Gritting his teeth against a wave of bitter heartache, Lance readjusted his position and flexed his trigger hand, trying to keep focused. If his attention strayed he could compromise the mission and worse, compromise Keith. That was one thing he refused to do.

So for Keith's sake - for Voltron's sake - Lance shoved his pain down and replaced it with concentration. He had become used to it. So used to it, in fact, that it was now easier to flirt and act shallow than it was to dredge up his buried emotions and address them. He clung to his belief that if he told himself often enough that nothing was wrong, eventually nothing would be wrong.

 

Far below him, Keith reached the door and turned to signal Lance. Frowning with effort, Lance cautiously boosted himself over to the next cross-beam, then the next. If he missed one he would fall right on top of the Galra soldiers. Whole body rigid with tension, Lance gripped his rifle and jetted over them as quietly as he could. None of them looked up, and Lance found himself mentally thanking every deity he could think of.  
He made it to the last cross-beam and scrambled down beside Keith, who was crouching beside the doorlock. They had a few ticks at best before a drone stumbled across them, and Lance could see sweat matting Keith's hair against his throat as he worked. Lance looked away.

Finally Pidge's hack got through the coded door and it slid open with a quiet whoosh. Keith darted through, Lance on his heels. The scan of the ship showed patrols in the corridors, which they would have to avoid if they wanted to make it to the control room, two floors up.

Simple, really. Get to the bridge, plant the bomb, find the nearest eject point and call Pidge and Hunk to pick them up in their lions.

Except not. The not was that Lance was crouching behind Keith, who had placed a hand on Lance's chest to stop him as he listened out for the oncoming patrol. Lance's neck and the tips of his ears were aflame, but he told himself sternly that it meant nothing. Nothing at all.

The patrol clinked past and Keith was gone, hastening along the corridor. It took Lance a moment to breathe before he could follow.

It was getting worse. It had to be. Before, Lance had been able to bicker easily with Keith and feel almost nothing. Now whenever Keith so much as scowled at him Lance's heart stuttered. It was pathetic, only making Lance despise himself more.

But this wasn't the time for that. They were almost at the control room.

A drone they hadn't noticed on the radar marched around the corner. Keith lunged, dragging it into the corner and incapacitating it in one swift motion before dumping it and moving to the control room door. Lance stared, rifle aimed, at his oblivious teammate. How did Keith do that? Lance hadn't even got a single shot in.

A touch of the old rivalry flared up in him, but again he pushed it down with everything else and instead watched Keith's back while he uploaded Pidge's virus.

The door slid open and Keith grinned with fierce satisfaction before sneaking in unnoticed. Lance followed suit, rifle cocked and stomach threatening to claw its way up his windpipe. Three Galra officers and seven drones stood around the control panel, monitoring shipments. This was a stealth mission, so Lance and Keith would have to take out the guards before planting the bomb. Lance's throat tightened with nervousness.

Pidge's voice crackled over the comms as she hacked her way into the ship's security system remotely, with Keith's help.  
"Ready, guys? It's gonna get smoky in three... two..."  
Lance took a deep breath in, sealing his helmet and switching on his head torch.  
"One."  
Steam issued from the temperature regulators, filling the bridge with vapour. The Galra cried out in alarm, stumbling back from the controls. Then Keith was there, a red blur, cracking their heads together with brutal efficiency. The fog in the room lit up with blue lightning as Lance shot the drones with unerring accuracy, blasting them even as they ran at him. The steam fogged up his helmet visor and he quickly took off his helmet, shooting the drones right between they eyes before they could even aim.

He was doing well. So well, in fact, that he didn't see the drone approaching from behind until it was too late. The butt of the drone's rifle was about to collide with the back of his head as he reacted too slowly, far too slowly, but then Keith threw himself in the way, pushing Lance behind him. Keith blocked the blow with his sword, but didn't see the Galra officer on the floor blearily reaching for his gun.

"No!" Lance screamed, raising his rifle, but he wasn't quick enough. The Galra shot Keith in the side before Lance blasted him viciously and he slumped to the floor.

Keith grunted and managed to stab the drone before falling to one knee, clutching his ribs. Lance shot the last drone and threw himself to the floor beside Keith, breath hitching painfully in his throat.

"Jesus Keith, you're hurt - I'm... I'm sorry, it's my fault-"

He was scrabbling for words, tentatively putting a hand on Keith's back. Keith, grimacing, shook him off and stood up.  
"Nice work, Lance," Keith said sarcastically, offering Lance his hand with an exasperated smile. "Weren't you meant to have me covered?"

Warm relief blossomed in Lance's chest. He took Keith's hand and got to his feet, preparing his usual high-pitched response. "Hey! Did you even see how many drones I shot? I officially beat you!"

"Yeah, because I was covering your ass," retorted Keith, smirking. "Come on, sharpshooter. Let's plant the bomb and get out of here."

He strode over to the control panel, leaving Lance staring gobsmacked after him, one trembling finger pointed at Keith. "You... you... You admit I'm a sharpshooter! Ha!"  
He did a victory dance up to the control panel, swinging his hips into Keith's. "You gonna admit that I'm the best and most amazing paladin too?"

Keith silenced him with an 'oh-my-god-Lance-you're-ridiculous' glance and unstrapped the explosives he carried.  
The sight of the bomb sobered Lance up as though he'd had water poured on him. He gulped and took his own half of the bomb off his back, feeling unnerved.

"We're really doing this, huh?" he murmured. Keith nodded abruptly and took Lance's half of the bomb.

The Olkari technology lit up with green veins in his hands. He slotted one half into the other and twisted, arming the bomb. It beeped and began to pulse, beginning a countdown in Altean numbers. Keith carefully stuck it to the underside of the control panel and pressed a button, locking it down. Now the bomb could not be disarmed until it detonated.

Keith and Lance had about ten minutes to get off the ship and escape the blast's range.

They had to leave. Now.

*

Keith, feeling reckless, grabbed Lance's hand as they ran for the door. The Red and Blue paladins sprinted through the ship, avoiding patrols as carefully as they could. They made it back to the docking bay, Keith leading his lankier companion. Time was ticking.

His side ached with every footstep. He'd brought it on himself, of course. He was always careless when Lance was in danger. Keith couldn't explain it, even to himself - when he saw the butt of the drone's gun about to crack Lance's unprotected head open he didn't even remember moving. Then Lance's scream and the hot agony in his ribs brought him back to awareness.

The pain didn't deter him, through. If there was anything that Keith could endure, it was physical discomfort. That day with the Blade of Marmora had taught him that.

Still hand-in-hand with Lance, Keith checked his ticker. They had the rough equivalent of six minutes until the Galra freighter was space rubble. The control room was the epicentre of the blast, so the docking bay, two floors directly underneath, would be obliterated. They had to move fast.

Keith spoke hoarsely into his comms system, calling out to Pidge and Hunk. "Guys, wait for us outside the docking bay. We're on our way out."

"Don't want to state the obvious, Keith," answered Hunk, already panicking, "But you guys should really, really hurry. I don't want to be anywhere near here when it explodes."

"I'm with Hunk on that one," added Pidge. "This is not the time to hold hands with your boyfriend."  
She'd hacked into the security feed and was watching them run.

Keith angrily ripped his hand out of Lance's grip and kept running.

He rounded a corner and saw the purple plasma screen that kept oxygen in the loading dock. Activating his helmet he broke into a sprint, Lance right behind him. They were approaching the plasma screen quickly and once they got through it they'd be in open space. Keith exhaled slowly, focusing on his feet pounding on the floor and Lance's heavy breathing to his rear. They were so close - ten metres away, five, four -

Then a flash of purple blinded him and he tumbled to the floor, skidding on the sleek black surface. His back felt as though someone had hit it with a door. Unhurt, he looked up to see what had happened. Lance was lying beside him, pushing himself slowly onto his elbows. As Keith rolled to his feet another purple blast rang out, hitting Lance squarely in the back. He crumpled to the floor.

A single drone was approaching, gun cocked. Keith leaped forward and decapitated it before turning back to Lance.  
Lance was uninjured, but his jet-pack was blackened and steaming. From the feel of it, Keith guessed his own was in a similar state.

A clatter of footsteps broke out behind him, and Keith turned to find himself staring down a whole platoon of Galra soldiers, who immediately began to fire at him and Lance. Keith shielded Lance and checked his ticker.

 

Twenty seconds until the blast. How had time gone that fast? Lance struggled to his knees, looking dazed, and stared uncomprehendingly at his ticker, then at the approaching Galra soldiers.

The colossal steel doors that sealed the docking bay began to groan and churn, edging closer together. They were going to be sealed in.

Keith stood over Lance, mind racing. Twenty ticks until the explosion. He couldn't move Lance, not under heavy Galra fire. If they had their jetpacks they could have flown through the doors as they closed. What could he do? There wasn't time for Pidge and Hunk to fly in and help them. If he hesitated too long the doors would shut and they'd be trapped.

They were going to die.

It was a desperate moment, and Keith found himself staring at Lance. Lance's expression was drawn with pain and fear, but he was staring calmly back at Keith. His face was tinted blue by the light filtering through Keith's shield, he had a small cut on his cheek and his hair was stuck to his temples with sweat. Keith wasn't sure if he'd ever seen a more beautiful sight.

Lance's eyes dropped to Keith's ticker, then to the drone lying immobilised next to them. He lifted his gaze back to Keith's own and there was a new resolution there. A steely grit that Keith had never seen on Lance's face before. Keith wanted to spend his last seconds looking into Lance's eyes, holding him, but Lance had other ideas.

Lance lunged for Keith's bayard and wrenched it out of Keith's grip. With it he grabbed the dead drone and cut the straps on the drone's jetpack. Keith reached for him but Lance shoved him out of the way and tied the jetpack to Keith's back.

It happened too fast for Keith to realise what Lance had done.

Lance, blue eyes burning with a vivid ferocity, pulled Keith down and kissed him hard on the mouth. It tasted of blood. Keith pulled back from him, startled, Lance's tears wet on his cheeks.

Then Lance activated the drone's jetpack. Keith was sent tumbling backwards, head over heels, skidding through the plasma screen and out into open space at breakneck speed.

The pressure change hit him like a punch to the chest, leaving him reeling. He didn't understand why he had gone from seeing Lance's face to seeing stars. He hovered, weightless, disorientated. When he looked back at the ship through the plasma screen he could see Lance kneeling, silhouetted against the Galra gunfire. As he watched, Lance got to his feet and stood, alone.

The metal doors shivered closed. Keith screamed, a wordless howl of urgency. The ticker bleeped to zero.

The explosion, when it came, was silent. Sound does not travel in space. The force of it ripped through the steel airlock doors and flung Keith backwards like a ragdoll. He barely felt it. Heat enveloped him, crisping his skin and searing the air from his lungs. His visor blackened, making his blurry vision grey and colourless. He was thrown over and over like a leaf in a storm, debris ripping through his armour and piercing his flesh. His ears hurt, both from the pressure and from the raw, coarse volume of his own screams. He didn't know which way was up, or even if he was still alive.

All he knew was that there was no way Lance could have survived.

Then Hunk's lion closed its jaws over Keith and he saw nothing but darkness.

*

He was cold, and he could feel Lance.

Keith didn't know where he was, but echoes of Lance's voice susurrated close to his ear, as though Lance was resting a head on his shoulder and whispering to him.

Keith smiled faintly, feeling the sweetness of it. Lance touching him, just as he'd always imagined he would. Running his hand through his hair. Sliding a hand gently into Keith's own and interlacing fingers. Parting his lips gently with a thumb and filling the space with a soft kiss.

Drowsily wondering why he was so cold, Keith reached up to feel Lance, to ask him what was going on. At his touch Lance's presence splintered into a million shards and drifted away.

Keith's eyes opened, and he found he was crying tears that froze as soon as they spilled onto his cheeks.

The cryopod opened with a hiss and Keith fell out, legs watery with disuse. He was caught by strong hands, one metal, which kept him upright and pulled him into a hug.

"Shiro?" he asked, burying his face in the softness of Shiro's clothing. "How long was I out?"

"Three days," Shiro responded hoarsely. Keith could hear the pain in his voice and looked up at his friend, confused.

"What happened?"

"I'm sorry, Keith," came the reply. Keith could feel the vibrations in Shiro's chest as he spoke. "We should have done more to help you. I'm so sorry."

Keith, still half-awake, didn't know what he was talking about.

Shiro's hug was added to by Hunk, who wrapped his arms around them both. Hunk was sobbing miserably, heartrending sobs that pierced Keith to the bone.

Bewildered and shivering, Keith struggled to remember what had happened. With horrifying suddenness it flashed in his mind's eye: the mission.

The Galra. The bomb. Lance. Lance's kiss. The vicious resolve in his blue eyes as he sacrificed himself for Keith. The stars wheeling around Keith as he drifted through space, watching as the doors closed and Lance's fate was sealed. The smoky, acrid smell of burning hair. The appalling power of the explosion, a wall of fire that had shattered Keith's bones and lacerated him with debris.

 

Lance's death.

Keith's hand spasmed where it rested on Shiro's right arm. He choked slightly, grief and denial bubbling up in his throat like vomit.

Feeling him buck and shake, Shiro loosened his grip. Keith's legs went out from under him and he fell to a semi-kneel on the floor of the cryopod chamber. Hunk immediately sat down with him, crying his eyes out. Shiro stood over them, head in his hands.

Keith sat like that for hours.

 

There was a window in the cryochamber and he stared dully out of it, watching as the stars, tinted blue by molecular gas clouds, twinkled and burned outside the Castle. Lance's charred remains were out there somewhere, floating eternally in space with the rest of the debris from the ship. He would never see Earth again, the blue skies that he had dreamed of.

Absently, Keith wondered what happened to someone's dreams when they died. Were Lance's hopes and ambitions, his secrets and wishes, drifting endlessly like the rest of him? Colouring the stars like the colossal nebulae where suns were born? Or were they gone, obliterated as nothing but grey matter?

The thought that Lance would be journeying through space for eternity was unbearable. His family would never bury their son. For all the McClains would ever know, their son was lost in space, trying to save the planet he loved.

Keith grieved for them, and he grieved for himself, too. He felt selfish, self-indulgent, that he should be allowed to mourn Lance when it was his fault that Lance was gone. But he would at least allow himself regret.

If Keith hadn't insisted on doing this stupid mission Lance would still be alive. If Keith hadn't sprinted carelessly towards the plasma screen Lance would still be alive. If Keith had seen that drone in time they could have used their jetpacks and Lance would still be alive. If Keith had stayed with Lance they could at least have died together.

Why had he ripped his hand from Lance's grip? Why had he pulled back when Lance kissed him? Lance had died thinking that Keith didn't love him.

 

But he did.

 

Keith loved Lance so fiercely that it took his breath away. He had for a long time. It scared him, a little, the flutter under his ribs whenever their hands or shoulders brushed. The violent beating of his heart whenever Keith was alone with him. Keith wanted so badly to hold Lance, touch him gently in a way he'd never touched anyone. Keith's hands were made to hurt people, that was what they were best at, but Keith wanted only to use them to roam softly over Lance's skin.

And Keith could have. He had been close on several occasions to telling Lance everything. Tell him about how hard it was to breathe when Lance was with him. Tell him that all Keith wanted was to be with him. He had gone as far as calling Lance's name, the words on his tongue.

But then Lance would flirt with someone else, or make fun of Keith's hair, or boast about how great he was, and the old fear closed over Keith's heart. The fear that everyone would leave him, just like Shiro had. Just like his mother had.

So rather than say anything, Keith threw himself into his work. If he destroyed Lotor, and Zarkon, and the Galra Empire; whether as a paladin or with the Blade, Lance could return to Earth and maybe, finally, Keith would be able to tell him everything he felt.

And because of Keith's inability to tell Lance how he felt and his subsequent single-minded drive to defeat the Galra, Lance was dead. And Keith was left alone with his regrets.

Pidge came after a while and gave Keith a blanket. She sat with him quietly, looking out at the stars. She said nothing, and Keith was glad of the company.

A few minutes later they were joined by Hunk and Shiro, who sat with them wordlessly. Allura slipped in, followed by Coran.

 

Team Voltron sat together and watched the travelling light of distant stars.


	2. Chapter 2

Lance strapped the drone's jetpack to Keith's back and grunted with relief. Now there was a chance, at least, that Keith would survive this.

Lance was glad of that. Keith had always been the paladin Lance wished he could be. Better that Keith should live so that Voltron could prosper. Now that Lance was gone, Keith could go back to piloting Red and Shiro could pilot the Black Lion. It made sense.

Lance did his best to see his death as the removal of non-essential weight, but it was hard.

Non-essential weight. Keith's words, from their escape through the desert. They summed him up pretty well. Allura could pilot Blue better than Lance had ever been able to, and he was even worse in Red than he was in Blue. Voltron didn't need him. Maybe they never really had.

Tears spilled over and dripped down Lance's chin. He was breathing heavily, trying to stay calm. They had only seconds left before the explosion.

He knew he should save Keith immediately, but he couldn't. Not when Lance was about to die, and Keith was kneeling there looking at him with those wide black eyes. His expression was urgent, desperate and intolerably sad, and he was looking at Lance like he couldn't drink his face in fast enough.

A fresh pair of tears rolled down Lance's face at the sadness of it all, and he pulled Keith in and kissed him hard. A moment of self-indulgence before the end. Keith's lips were soft, and when Keith pulled away his face was shining wetly with Lance's tears. Lance's breath stuck in his throat.

There was no time.

Lance pressed the panel on the side of Keith's makeshift jetpack and Keith went sprawling sideways, tumbling out into space. Satisfied that he would survive the explosion, Lance activated his own shield and got to his feet. If he was going to die, he'd be damned if he wasn't going to die standing, facing the enemy.

One last look back at Keith, who was now just a distant shadow against the stars. Then he had to turn his attention to blocking the Galra fire.

Lance wished his last sight could have been of Keith, but then again he had wanted to die on Earth surrounded by family. You don't always get what you want. Lance thought of them all as the doors clanged shut behind him. He hoped they wouldn't miss him too much.

He thought of his family, but his mind always inevitably returned to Keith. Lance recalled him as he wanted to remember him - standing in his room, gazing at him softly and with incredible pride.

"And Lance? Leave the math to Pidge."

Bracing himself against the Galra gunfire, Lance let out a sob. He had wanted so much that he would now never get. Loving Keith, a life with Keith. Raising kids with Keith.

As Lance heard the bomb detonate, his last thought was regret that Keith had never come to love him back.

 

*

Eventually Keith stood up.

"The more I think about it," he said determinedly, "The more I know I have to look for him."  
Team Voltron looked up at him, the same confusion and wariness in each of their expressions.

"You must realise..." Allura began heavily. "There is quite literally no chance that Lance-"

"I know." Keith cut her off. "But I can never look his family in the eye and tell them their son died without even trying to find him."

Allura's look of caution changed to understanding.  
"I'm coming with you," she said firmly. Hunk stood up, resolve vivid on his face. "Me too," he said.

This time, Allura took extra care putting on her pink armour.

*

Lance awoke in a world of pain.

He didn't understand. How was he alive? Heat was searing his body and there was a roaring in his ears that shut out any rational thought, so loud he thought his head would split in two. Every inch of him hurt with an ache so deep he thought he would die all over again from the pain.

He cracked his eyes open, wanting to give into his agony. He couldn't, though - not while breath still shuddered in and out of his lungs.

Where was he? He couldn't see. When he opened his eyes all was dark, except for a patch that light shone through dimly. Lance tried to rub his eyes, arms screaming with effort. One of them, his left, wouldn't move, so he used the other to wipe the blood from his eyes.

Light flooded in, so bright that it stung. The incredible heat and blinding light combined to make it impossible for Lance to figure out what was happening. He felt a lurch in the pit of his stomach, like when a rollercoaster tips over an arch and begins to track downwards. Lance tried to get to his feet, but couldn't. 

The lurch in his stomach got worse. Lance found himself stuck to the floor as though gravity had tripled, forced into the ground as though he was being pushed by a giant invisible hand. The roaring continued, deafening him and making it impossible to think. The heat got hotter and the light got brighter, so that Lance had no choice but to squeeze his streaming eyes shut.

His helmet, thankfully, was still on. That was why he was still breathing. The aircon inside his helmet was undoubtedly what stopped his brain from boiling in the incredible heat.

Just as it all got unbearable and Lance began to scream, the heat and light lessened. The roaring was still savaging his ears, but not as intensely as before. Lance managed to crawl to the airlock opening, fighting the tilt of the floor. He was still in the shell of the docking bay, incredibly, and it looked as though the rest of the ship had been ripped apart by the explosion. Lance had been lying in a small cubicle, which had prevented him from shooting out the gaping end of the ship and into space.

He expected to see space, but instead he saw smoke trails and a yellow sky. Had the ship just entered the atmosphere of a planet?

Hanging onto the lip of the airlock, Lance peered outside. The floor's violent tilting got worse, until he was hanging onto the edge of the doorway for dear life. With one arm out of commission it was no easy task, but Lance knew that if he let go he would die for sure.

Outside, the half of the ship that Lance was in had ploughed into an alien planet's atmosphere and was heading straight for the surface. The ground was approaching fast.

Lance knew he had to jump if he wanted to survive the collision. It was a miracle that his neck wasn't broken already. Hell, it was a miracle he wasn't space charcoal right now. How the quiznak had he survived?

That didn't matter now. What mattered was his continued survival.

The planet he'd entered was an ice planet, seemingly. Passing rapidly below him were ice fields, glaciers and snowdrifts. Lance spied what he prayed was a settlement in the distance, a clump of igloo-like houses. If it was a settlement, he was incredibly lucky. The odds of crashing on a planet with an atmosphere, let alone a sentient species, were infinitesimal. The odds of even crashing on a planet at all were astounding. Pidge had once told him that space was just that - empty space.

The destroyed Galra freighter, still smouldering from burning up on entry, was barrelling towards the surface. Lance hung on as best he could when the ship knocked into a glacier, sending colossal towers of ice plummeting and spraying to the ice field below.

The screaming, burning ship was nearing the ground. Lance knew he had to be careful when he jumped, as the force of motion versus inertia versus the hard ground would kill him in an instant. He wished he'd listened harder in Physics back at the garrison.

The ship coasted over a snowdrift, and Lance knew it was now or never.

With one skinny arm and one lanky leg he managed to haul himself over the lip of the airlock and fling himself as far out as he could. A whirling moment of sky-snow-sky-snow later he landed with a whump in the slightly frosted-over snowdrift.

There was no time to waste, however. The snow could easily be toxic, but he had to find shelter from the debris that would be flying his direction any second now. He decided that the former was the least of two evils and burrowed into the snow, digging himself in with one hand as well as he could.

The Galra freighter struck the ice a moment later. It was an astonishing sight - the vast black burning mass of it ploughing and floundering into the ice like a beached whale. It splintered where it hit the glacier, shards of purple metal pounding the ice all around Lance with terrifying speed. As more of the ship crumpled and rent itself against the glacier, part of the huge mountain of frozen... something came off and thundered down into the sheet ice.

Then came the explosion. Lance had thought the previous explosion, and then the sound of the ship roaring into the atmosphere, had both been the loudest thing he'd ever heard. This, however, took the cake. Lance cowered into the snowdrift, shielding his head and ears, as the purple energy core of the ship hit the ice and exploded across the tundra, sending a column of purple light straight up into the yellow sky. It was followed by a huge mushroom cloud, which glowed violet and then blue as it rose and hung in the air.

It struck Lance that the destruction of a huge ship like that could potentially release radiation. Unnerved, he got up and began to hop across the ice away from the wreckage. One foot, he had discovered, was pointing the wrong direction. His ankle must have been broken badly, because his toes had done a 180. Spears of pain were beginning to flash up his leg, turning his stomach to water.

He didn't know what to do. Get away from the burning, radioactive crash site, stumble one-legged across the ice and hope someone saved him? Or huddle in the burning radioactive crash site and try to find a way to contact his friends?

It was clear to him by now that the comm system on his helmet was broken. He hadn't heard anyone through it since he'd regained consciousness, but maybe the connection was okay on their end. Lance began to speak into his helmet, certain that if the connection was live they'd have heard his screams and would be listening.

A wave of exhaustion washed over him as the adrenaline of the crash wore off. Lance collapsed back into the snowdrift, crunching into the frost. To pass the time until he got some strength back, he chattered into his comms system. He hoped fervently they could hear him.

"Guys? It's me, Lance. You know that, of course, because I'm missing and on a weird planet and everything. I'm alive though! Wooo!" His feeble attempt at a cheer trailed off depressingly.  
"So yeah. I lived, bitches. I'm on an icy planet with a yellow sky. I'd call it saffron, actually, it's quite pleasant. Yellow and snow, though? Yikes.  
"So basically, I woke up in the wreckage of the ship as it plummeted towards this planet. I jumped out because I'm amazing and am now sitting in a snowdrift, and in a pretty astounding amount of pain. My ass is also now wet, which is a definite downside to this marvellous adventure.

"And, uh..." Lance's voice broke. "I kinda broke my leg. I'm not bleeding, or anything, but... uh... I have uh... one functioning leg, one twisted ankle, and one functioning arm. Not sure what's up with the other arm. Kinda scared to look, to be honest. I'd better check, though."

Shivering, Lance carefully peeled his armour away from the skin.

His arm was a mess.

There was a large, razor-sharp lump of debris jammed into a wide cut high on his bicep, which explained the numbness. He was probably in shock. The rest was burned almost black, and the fingers felt like those of a corpse. It looked as though someone had left his arm in the toaster for too long. Rivers of blood were beginning to pour from the cut, but Lance didn't think he was supposed to remove the debris. That made it worse, right? Like with stab wounds, sometimes the knife held the injury together and stopped the victim from bleeding out.

Lance was light-headed at the sight of it, but he kept talking.

"Hey guys, I uh... checked my arm just there and it may be well-muscled and very toned, but it's also a bit burnt. And there's this... big ol' piece of debris stuck in it. Like just a" he clenched his good fist, "Just a real hefty bit of space metal. My debris could eat your debris for breakfast. Pretty sure I'll have a wonderful bout of blood contamination coming on soon, but I'm really scared to remove it in case I bleed out. What would you guys recommend? Maybe one of you can come on down here in your big safe lion and tell me."

It occurred to Lance to try reaching out to his lion. Red or Blue, whichever. He shut his eyes and concentrated on his bond with Blue, thinking hard about what it felt like to be synced with her.

It was no good. He kept thinking of Allura flying her and his concentration broke.

Instead, Lance thought about Red. Her speed and agility, her intolerance for weakness. Mentally, he reached out to his lion, and got nothing back. She was in her hangar in the Castle, far away, and there was nothing he could do to reach her.

"Quiznak," he breathed, staring up at the yellow sky and blinking back tears.

After a while sitting there and consoling himself, Lance got up and decided to make his way back to the wreckage. His stark choice was between a slow death by exposure, hypothermia and starvation, or a slower death by radiation, starvation or being crushed by the unstable structure.  
If he went back to the crash site, he might find a way to contact his friends. If not, any natives around would come to investigate and he could ask them for help. Win-win.

Plus, he could barely move, so a trek over the ice fields didn't seem like the best idea.

"Hey, everyone," he said into the comm. "I've decided to go sit in the wreckage of the ship. Scavenge, maybe find a distress beacon, maybe even find a stick to walk with. Party with some dead Galra. The works. So, what I'm saying is that if you track the trajectory the front part of the Galra freighter may have taken when we blew it up, you'll probably find my planet. The yellow one. And if you search for a big steaming black crash site, you'll find me! Lancey Lance!"

Lance chuckled exhaustedly into the receiver, fogging up his visor as he crawled over the ice. "Maybe bring a cryopod with you. Medical help would be a godsend right now. Heck, I'd even down a litre of Nunvil."

The mess of his ankle caught on a lump of ice and Lance cried out, blacking out momentarily before heaving himself back to a crawling position.

"Okay, so that wasn't ideal. Must have a shit-ton of nerve damage," he muttered to himself. "Sorry, Coran, I meant quiznak-ton. Though I think in this situation I'm allowed a swear or two."

Lance kept crawling. The crash site looked to be about a kilometre away, so he had a long crawl ahead of him.

"So, let me tell you all my theories about this lovely planet I have found myself on. One - I don't think the atmosphere is breathable, but it could be. I'm too scared to take off my helmet, though, because I have no idea what gas would make the sky yellow. Probably not one that agrees with me.

"Theory two - it's a big-ass planet. I mean, a ship roughly a sixth of Earth's mass crashed into it and it's fine. No biggie. Barely even a crater. Plus, it must have had a gravity strong enough to pull in an entire Galra ship, which makes me think this is a really big planet we're dealing with here. Like, bigger than Jupiter big.

"Theory three - It's in the middle of its solar system, a similar position to that of Earth in the Sol system. I think this because it's cold enough to have a ton of ice, but not too cold that the snow is frozen. So basically Earth, but the size of Jupiter and just a degree or two further from the sun. Oh, and yellow. If you guys are listening I would expect you to be here by now because I would be here right now if I were you. But I'm me, so hurry up."

Lance kept dragging himself along, shivering, suspecting that the was just talking to himself. His voice was as bright and cheery as ever, but he was close to despair.

As ever, his thoughts turned to Keith. Was he alive? Surely Lance had done enough to save him. What if Pidge and Hunk didn't find him and he was just floating in space? Lance dismissed this idea forcefully. The lions would have found him, either the Black Lion or the Red one. Keith was fine.  
He had to be.

Because Lance was in the process of dying for him.

"Keith... if you're there..." he said into his helmet receiver. "I'm sorry for throwing you out into space. I'm sorry for kissing you. I just... I knew I was about to die, and there were... I guess there were two things I needed. I needed you to be safe and alive, and I needed, uh... I don't know. Not to die having never kissed anyone, I suppose. And your ugly mullet face was right there, so I went okay, now's my chance! And then I tossed you into space. I guess that was pretty cool of me, the heroic sacrifice and all that. Except I ruined it by being alive.

"Doesn't seem like that's a problem that will last for a long time. My arm's bleeding, my leg's broken, and it's really, really cold. I hope you guys get here soon, though. I have to believe that you will, because otherwise..."

His voice broke again.

"Look, I know that I'm not that good a paladin. I know that I'm non-essential weight, Lance the flirt, Lance the goofball. You're all better off without me, I know that.

"I just... I really hope you guys will come and rescue me. You're probably all happier now that I'm gone, but I don't want to die here. I want to go home. Can you do that for me? Even though I'm a flunk and a failure... I just want to see my madre one more time, and abuelita and Carmen and Stavo..."

Tears were pooling on the inside of his helmet. "I want to see everyone again. Hunk, Pidge... You guys are such nerds. You were the best friends I ever had. Hunk, man, I've never got on with anyone as well as I got on with you. You were my brother, dude. You're so important to me. If you could get your ass down here in Yellow and give me a Kaltenecker milkshake you'd be even more important. Pidge - I hope you find Matt. I know you will. If anyone in the whole quiznaking universe could, it's you. Don't you ever give up. "

"Okay," Lance breathed, sniffing wetly, crawling into the shrivelled and twisted wreckage. "The rest of you will have to wait for your compliments. It looks like I might just live for another few hours."

Exhausted, Lance found a still-warm, sheltered piece of Galra piping and collapsed into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just an angsty one-shot that got so long i decided to divide it up... this was a diversion from schoolwork so please be kind and consider leaving a comment?? <3 tell me if i fucked anything up!! I hope you guys are enjoying it, i hope it's ok (I get that the writing is maybe not my best but this was written at 3am so please be forgiving!!) thanks for reading!!


	3. Chapter 3

Keith threw himself down into the Black's cockpit chair and yanked on the thrusters. Black responded instantly, rising from a crouch and shooting out into space. Keith hovered, feeling the growl of Black's power under him as he waited for Hunk and Allura.

A moment later Blue soared out of her hangar, followed by Hunk in Yellow. Pidge gave them the coordinates and Keith carefully keyed them into his navigator screen. Then they were off, the three lions coasting swiftly through space.

They didn't talk much. Each one of them was wrapped in their own thoughts.

Allura felt small in Blue's cockpit, feeling the presence of its former paladin. She had quickly grown comfortable with Blue and her controls over the past weeks, but with Lance gone it felt wrong for her to pilot what had originally been his lion. Blue seemed as eager as she did to get to the drifting flotsam left by the explosion, making Allura feel as though Blue hadn't quite lost her link with him. She didn't know how that made her feel. Jealous? Hopeful?

Hunk felt things too deeply. He always had. As he flew now beside the Black and Blue Lions it was hard not to break down. Lance was his best friend, and Hunk had been waiting for him outside the freighter like an idiot. If he had gone in and snatched Lance up with Yellow's jaws, Lance would be with him now. He would probably be whining about some minor annoyance, talking about his family, or grumbling about Keith. God, Hunk missed him. It had been three days of turning to tell Lance something, then remembering. It broke his heart every time. Hunk set his teeth and kept flying.

And Keith? Keith had gone from being achingly rueful and torn apart by grief to anger. Burning, incandescent rage at everything - himself, the Galra, Lance. He scowled thunderously at Black's helm, urging her to go faster. He missed Red's speed now. He missed Red's paladin.

Suddenly a voice crackled over the silent comms line.

_"Guys? It's me-"_ it said, dissolving into static.

It was quiet, and kept cutting out, but it was unmistakeably Lance. Keith stared blankly at his display, eyes wide. He couldn't believe it. Lance was dead. He had to be. Could he possibly have survived the explosion?

_"...Because I'm missing and on a weird planet and-,"_ Keith's heart leapt. _"-alive though! Wooo!"_

Keith felt dizzy. Darkness started eating away at the corners of his vision. It was Lance.

He wasn't dead. He wasn't dead.

_"So yeah. I lived, bitches-" ... "-icy planet with a yellow sky. I'd call it saffron, actually-"... "-Yellow and snow, though? Yikes."_

"Are you guys hearing this?" Pidge exclaimed. "It's Lance!"

"I don't understand," Allura breathed, eyes wide, hands slack on her controls. "How is it possible?"

Keith, voice trembling, called out to Lance. "Lance! Lance! Can you hear me?!"

Lance offered no acknowledgement he'd heard anything. _"So basically, I woke up in the wreckage of the ship as it plummeted towards this planet. I jumped-" ... "-I'm amazing-" ..."-snowdrift, and in a pretty-" ... "-also now wet, which is a definite downside to this-"..._

Keith broke down completely, resting his head in his hands. "He's alive... Oh, God, he's alive..." His voice sounded as though he hadn't used it in weeks. Body wracked with silent, painful sobs, he sat alone at Black's controls, letting Lance's voice wash over him.

_"And, uh..."_ Lance's voice cracked and broke with pain. _"I kinda fucked my leg. I'm not bleeding, or anything, but... uh... I have uh... one functioning-"..."-and one functioning arm. Not sure what's-" ... "-other arm. Kinda scared to look, to be honest. I'd better check, though."_

Keith raised his head, wide-eyed. Lance was out there, alone, scared, grievously injured. He didn't even know whether or not his team could hear him. Drawing in a gravelly breath, Keith bit into his knuckle hard enough to draw blood.

"Pidge! Can you track the signal?" burst Allura.

"I can't, it's too weak," responded Pidge. "He must be extremely far away, or somewhere with a dense atmosphere. We'll have to guess where he is."

"Come on, Lance," muttered Hunk, gripping Yellow's thrusters hard. "Tell us where to find you."

Lance kept talking, sounding far more troubled and sombre than he had before. It made Keith's heart constrict with anxiety.

_"Hey guys, I uh... checked my arm just there and it may be well-muscled and very toned, but it's also a bit burnt. And there's this... big ol' piece of debris stuck in it. Like just a... Just a real hefty bit of space metal. My debris could eat your debris for breakfast. Pretty sure I'll have a wonderful bout of blood contamination coming on soon, but I'm really scared to remove it in case I bleed out. What would you guys-" ..."-come on down here in your big safe lion and tell me."_

"Jesus," breathed Hunk. "Just how injured is he?"

Keith felt panic claw its way up his throat. What if they didn't make it in time? He couldn't survive losing Lance twice.

It was silent for a while. "Lance?" said Keith urgently, knowing Lance wasn't able to hear him. He couldn't help it.

He heard a choking sniff travel over the comms system. It sounded like Lance was crying. Keith felt a lump swell in his own throat, so painful he couldn't swallow around it. He drew a rough breath.

_"Hey, everyone,"_ Lance continued, voice still shaky, _"I've decided to go sit in the wreckage of the ship. Scavenge, maybe find a distress beacon, maybe even find a stick to walk with. Party with some-"..."-what I'm saying is that, if you track the trajectory the front part of the Galra freighter may have taken when we blew it up, you'll probably-"..."-big steaming black crash site, you'll find me! Lancey Lance!"_

"That's brilliant!" shouted Pidge. Keith could already hear her typing over the comm. "Keith, Hunk, Allura, get to the explosion site now. I need you to help me track the direction the front half of the freighter flew in."

"On it!" replied Hunk, steering Yellow forward. Allura shot off after him, concentration in her huge blue eyes.

Keith stopped for a moment, running a trembling hand over the screen of his helmet. Lance's face hovered in his mind's eye - Lance as Keith had last seen him. Crying, lips reddened from the kiss, blue eyes bright with grit and resolve. When Keith remembered Lance like that, he knew that Lance would do anything to stay alive. Flares that burned as bright as he did didn't just die out.  
"I'll find you, Lance," he muttered angrily, and sent the Black Lion coursing after his friends.

 

*

 

Lance had half-hoped to wake up safe in a cryopod.

It was ridiculous, now that he thought about it. Lance had only slept for what he guessed was an hour, but he felt worse than he had when he'd lost consciousness. He was shivering, but a savage, prickling heat surged under his skin. The left sleeve of his armour was stained black with blood, and the remains of his right leg were oozing a weird pale liquid.

Still, his head was far clearer than it had been. He supposed he had been in shock, before. It was pretty obvious to him now that if he didn't take care of himself he would die.

Lance took off his belt and tied it around his left bicep as a makeshift tourniquet. Then he detached the tattered right leg of his armour and, using a sharp piece of debris, sawed off the tight black material underneath. Then he put the white armour back on, covering his right thigh. With the black material Lance made himself a sling for his numb left arm.

He did the same with the other leg, cutting off the black material at the knee. With this he made a tight makeshift dressing for the half-cauterised wound on his right knee. That done, he rubbed snow into the end of his right leg, numbing the pain.

Then he got up, using a long, thin pole as a staff. He could walk with it, kind of. He warmed the alien snow with his body heat and drank a handful of the melted fluid at a time. He hoped it wouldn't poison him. It tasted a bit metallic, but nothing too bad.

He needed to find food and warmth, as well as a medikit. The thing that was troubling him most was the surging heat under his skin, which he guessed was blood contamination from the debris. He'd address that one if he found a Galra medikit somewhere in the wreck.

Singing softly to himself, Lance set off, leaning heavily on his makeshift staff. The snow crunched underfoot as he went, exploring the scattered remains of the wreck.

The days on this planet seemed to be longer. Lance had been here for what felt like half a day, maybe more, but the dim quality of the sunlight hadn't changed. The sun was smaller here than it was at home. It seemed to glow, rather than shine, creating a quiet, hazy yellow ambiance that reflected on the pale snow. It was beautiful.

Heat wasn't difficult to find in the mangled ruins of the Galra behemoth. Purple fires charred what was left of panels and machinery, hot enough to singe Lance's eyebrows when he got too close. Beside them, he made sure each of his remaining limbs were warm and moderately dry, even though the contamination in his veins made him long to plunge into the snow to cool off. Next was food. It had been a supply ship, so Lance presumed that wouldn't be too difficult either. He didn't really know what the Galra ate, but if Shiro could survive a year on their food he hoped he could eat it too.

After a painful, sweaty half-hour of hauling crumpled sheets around, Lance had made a makeshift shelter, complete with fire and some packets of what he hoped was Galra food. He had even collected weird papery wrappings to keep his fire going and some soft, downy bedding. It was nice, albeit tattered.

Next was a medikit. He shouldn't have left it until last. Leaning exhaustedly on his staff, Lance hobbled around the wreckage, poking through bits of rubble and scrap. There were charred Galra bodies, dozens of them, as well as shattered drones. Lance didn't look at those. He knew that the stench of death in this place would haunt him if he thought about it too hard. He did, however, cross himself whenever he smelled burnt flesh.

He found a medikit and a flare together, buried at the bottom of a large container full of emergency items. Only one was left intact and he grabbed it, hugging it to his chest with a flush of happiness. Maybe now he'd actually survive until someone came to get him.

"Me again!" he trilled into his receiver, no longer caring if his friends could hear him. "I think I might actually survive a bit longer, I found a medikit and a flare which is cool! Haven't seen any natives yet but I live in hope. Maybe there'll be some lovely alien ladies?"

That last line came out more hollow and meaningless than it ever had. It felt like a ridiculous charade at this point, flirting with any vaguely feminine alien he encountered. Lance had always known that it was just an pathetic attempt at making Keith jealous. The way things were now, half-assed attempts at getting Keith to feel for him would probably kill him faster than the debris lodged in his arm.

But Lance didn't want to think about that.

He got back to his little camp and dragged his bed outside, so that he could see the glowing sky while tending his wounds. His friends, if they came, could arrive at any moment. The flare leaned against his leg, Lance opened the Galra medikit and peered inside.  
There was a roll of silky bandages, a weird metallic spray canister, a small purple jar of ointment, a small laser-cutter tool and a sheaf of a strange papery substance. Lance couldn't read Galran, and he knew that the Galra healed differently to humans. Keith had proved that by rarely needing the cryopods even though he got injured the most often of all of them. Lance had no idea what this medicine would do to him. Would it even work? What if it made everything worse?

Still, the blood contamination was beginning to make Lance dizzy and nauseous. His leg ached, threatening infection, and his hands had begun to shake uncontrollably. What choice did he have?

"Vrepit sa," he muttered sarcastically, and began to apply the medicine to his wounds.

*

Now that Keith, Hunk and Allura had arrived at the explosion site, there was nothing to do but wait while Pidge and Coran worked.

The place was terrifying. For a radius of several kilometres there was nothing but drifting shards of black metal, glinting purple as they rotated and spun slowly. Some scrap was probably still shooting through space, endlessly propelled by the force of the blast. The front third of the ship was presumably with Lance, but nearly a third of it was here, in splinters, still pulsing with green Olkari light. Some larger bits of scrap had already begun to clump together like asteroids.

The orange nebula behind the ship twinkled like a veil, almost too beautiful to be in the same place as such devastation. Keith, Allura and Hunk were speechless at the sight of the destruction.

"Can we agree to never, ever use bombs this powerful again?" ventured Hunk.

"Seconded," said Pidge.

Keith had opened his mouth to reply when another transmission from Lance crackled over the comm. It had been radio silence since the last one, and all the paladins audibly gasped.

It began with Lance huffing with effort. It sounded as though he was dragging himself over metal, or pack ice.

_"So, let me tell you all my ... my theories about this lovely planet I have found myself on. One - I don't think the atmosphere is breathable, but it could be. I'm too scared to take off my helmet, though, because I have no idea what gas would make the sky yellow. Probably not one that agrees with me."_

"Yellow sky," said Pidge, typing frantically. "Got it. Scanning for any dust-based planets in this quadrant. Possibly orbiting a red dwarf."

Keith's chest ached at Lance's admission that he was scared. His voice continued, and it was clear to Keith that Lance didn't think anyone could hear him.

_"Theory two - it's a big-ass planet. I mean, a ship roughly a sixth of Earth's mass crashed into it and it's fine. No biggie. Barely even a crater. Plus, it must have had a gravity strong enough to pull in an entire Galra ship, which makes me think this is a really big planet we're dealing with here. Like, bigger than Jupiter big."_

"Mass similar to or larger than that of Jupiter," echoed Pidge. "Redefining scan criteria."

_"Theory three - It's in the middle of its solar system, a similar position to that of Earth in the Sol system. I think this because it's cold enough to have a ton of ice, but not too cold that the snow is frozen. So basically Earth, but the size of Jupiter and just a degree or two further from the sun. Oh, and yellow."_

"No hits for this quadrant," said Pidge grimly. "Scan all neighbouring quadrants."

_"If you guys are listening I would expect you to be here by now because I would be here right now if I were you. But I'm me, so hurry up."_

"I'm doing my best, Lance!" snapped Pidge, then realised what she'd said. Keith smiled. Lance was able to make fun of Pidge even when he was dying on a distant planet.  
Then his smile dropped as Lance's tone changed. Keith's heart sank.

_"Keith... if you're there..."_

Keith swallowed, stomach writhing horribly. "I'm sorry for leaving you," he said, wishing Lance could hear him.

_"I'm sorry for throwing you out into space. I'm sorry for kissing you. I just... I knew I was about to die, and there were... I guess there were two things I needed. I needed you to be safe and alive, and I needed, uh... I don't know. Not to die having never kissed anyone, I suppose. And your ugly mullet face was right there, so I went okay, now's my chance! And then I tossed you into space. I guess that was pretty cool of me, the heroic sacrifice and all that. Except I ruined it by being alive."_

"Don't think that! Don't ever think that!" snarled Keith, wanting to break something. His heart felt like someone had put it in a blender.

_"Doesn't seem like that's a problem that will last for a long time. My arm's bleeding, my leg's shattered, and it's really, really cold. I hope you guys get here soon, though. I have to believe that you will, because otherwise..."_

Hunk started to cry again at the weary desperation in Lance's voice. Keith stared blankly at his display, wishing he could stop the transmission but knowing that he had to hear this. For Lance's sake.

_"Look, I know that I'm not that good a paladin. I know that I'm non-essential weight, Lance the flirt, Lance the goofball. I know that now I only have one leg I'm useless to you guys. I can't even fly a lion anymore. You're all better off without me, I know that."_

Allura gasped, tears welling up in her eyes.

_"I just... I really hope you guys will come and rescue me. You're probably all happier now that I'm gone, but I don't want to die here. I want to go home. Can you do that for me? Even though I'm a flunk and a failure... I just want to see my madre one more time, and abuelita and Carmen and Stavo..."_

Lance trailed off, a dreamy note entering his voice.

_"I want to see everyone again. Hunk, Pidge... You guys are such nerds. You were the best friends I ever had. Hunk, man, I've never got on with anyone as well as I got on with you. You were my brother, dude. You're so important to me. If you could get your ass down here in Yellow and give me a Kaltenecker milkshake you'd be even more important. Pidge - I hope you find Matt. I know you will. If anyone in the whole quiznaking universe could, it's you. Don't you ever give up. "_

There was silence on the comm system for a moment, broken only by Pidge's shuddering sobs.

_"Okay,"_ Lance sounded like he'd stopped crawling. His voice was slurred, his accent stronger than usual. He sounded relieved.

_"The rest of you will have to wait for your compliments. It looks like I might just live for another few hours."_

There was a crumpling sound, as though Lance had collapsed bonelessly. Keith bit his lip.  
The line shut off. Lance was gone.

"You okay, Pidge?" asked Hunk, voive gravelly.

"I'm good," said the youngest paladin, wiping her eyes. "The scan is 70% finished. One minute until we have a list of possible crash sites."

"Hope you're alright, Keith," added Allura. "I understand that must have been diff-"

"I'm fine," Keith cut in. "Let's just focus on getting there before he actually does die."

"Keith," butted in Shiro, in his most reasonable voice. "We all-"

"Scan complete!" shrieked Pidge. "Let me go through them. There are one thousand, six hundred and forty-two planets in a likely radius with a dusty atmosphere. There are fifty planets in a likely radius with a dusty atmosphere, which orbit a red dwarf. There are five planets in a likely radius with a dusty atmosphere, which orbit a red dwarf and are covered in permafrost. And," she said, voice reaching a fever pitch, "There are two planets in a likely radius with a dusty atmosphere, orbiting a red dwarf, covered in permafrost and lying in the Galra ship's trajectory. Neither of these are as large as Lance hypothesised but hey, he's Lance. I've locked your coordinates. GO!"

Hunk and Allura went together to the larger one, while Keith took the smaller. His heart was racing, and the Black Lion creaked around him as he urged her to fly faster. What if he was too late? Pidge had already told him that she couldn't date the transmissions from Lance because of his planet's dense atmosphere. He could have died three days ago, for all Keith knew.

It reminded him harshly of his first time in the Black Lion, when Shiro was injured and bravely fighting off alien predators. Now it was Lance hurting and alone, and Keith had let it happen again.

He was still a long way away from the planet, but that distance was decreasing with every tick. Was Keith really ready for what he found there? What if he arrived just to have Lance die in his arms? What if Lance had died long ago and his body was lying in the snow? What if he blamed Keith for his injuries? He'd almost lost a leg, for God's sake. That wasn't something you just overcame.

But Keith found he didn't care about Lance hating him. It didn't matter if Lance left him like everyone else did. It only mattered that Lance was alive. Bearing physical pain was one of the things Keith was best at. He could learn to numb himself to emotional pain too.

The Black Lion may have been much slower than Red, but she could still move. The planet, apparently named Kobahle, was rising up on his display, exactly like Pidge had described it. Yellowish and dusty, it was made up of continent-sized glaciers which churned and groaned endlessly in a sea of broken ice. Keith pulled up his scanner and checked for Galra vessels, his heart in his mouth.

The scanner revealed a huge Galra ship lodged in a glacier not far from where Keith hovered. It wouldn't take him long at all to get there. Two minutes, if he pushed Black to her limits.

This was it. Lance was down there, somewhere in the murky haze of the atmosphere. Alive or dead, Keith would finally find him. This was it.

Keith exhaled slowly and pushed Black into motion.

The lion prowled forward, gathering speed, and disappeared into the dusty yellow mists.

*

Turned out the Galra medicine didn't agree with Lance.

He should have known. Very little had gone right for him in the past two or three days, so why should this be any different? It just hurt that if Lance hadn't been so optimistic and applied the medicine, he might have seen Keith again. As things were, Lance didn't think he was going to make it.

He was lying stretched out on a piece of twisted and burnt wreckage. The cold air cooled his feverish face, even as his whole body shivered uncontrollably. Dusk was finally falling on the yellow planet, making shadows fall in long, cool slants across the snow. Turned out sunsets here were red - a deep, crimson red that faded to fiery orange. The dust in the atmosphere made rivers of fire snake across the sky as the sun sank.

It was a beautiful sight, and it reminded him of Keith. What a shame that Lance had to die twice. At least both times he could die with Keith's face in his mind.

Lance's breathing had started to gurgle wetly an hour or so ago. He was trembling, his whole body bucking and twitching as it tried to throw off his infection. The end of his right leg hurt with a pain so bone-deep that Lance just didn't want to feel it anymore. Would it be easier just to drift away? Spend his final hours sleeping? He wouldn't be in pain then. Nobody would blame him for wanting the pain to stop.

It was too late for Lance, anyway. It had been too late for Lance since that Galra drone shot him in the back, destroying his jetpack. It had been too late for Lance since Keith suggested he and Lance take the mission together. Lance had been so happy that Keith wanted Lance to cover him. Now Lance understood.

Sighing, wetting his chapped lips, Lance fought sleep. He wanted to be conscious for as long as he could. The stars were coming out, appearing dimly through the dust clouds and fading sunset. Lance was glad of that. He could watch the stars while he died, knowing his friends were up there.

And even though it had been messy and chaotic and painful, Lance had saved Keith. He clung to that. Even though everything he felt for Keith was unrequited, that didn't change the fact that there was nobody Lance would rather die for. That didn't change the fact that Keith was alive because of him.

Lance pictured Keith's face again, just as he always did - that soft, burning pride in his eyes as he regarded Lance. Leave the math to Pidge. Keith made him feel like a valued member of the team. Having saved Keith's life, Lance thought that maybe, just maybe, he was right.

Lance lost consciousness just as the sun sank below the horizon.

*

It was night on Kobahle.

Keith landed the Black Lion on a tall lump of steaming scrap and scanned for heat signatures. It hurt to see the bleak place where Lance had spent the past three days - a ghostly, smouldering mass of black wreckage half-buried in snow and ice. Keith could see mangled Galra bodies dotted here and there, flung like ragdolls among the debris. How had Lance survived both the explosion and the crash? What if he hadn't?

Keith rotated slowly on the spot, waiting for Lance to show up on his wrist projector. One horribly long moment later a bloom of red and orange stained the uniform blue of the snowy wastes. Two heat signatures - one small orange one and a long, lanky red one.

Lance. It had to be.

Keith was off, jet-packing and stumbling his way towards Lance. His breath was ragged in his throat and more than once he fell, tumbling among the charred and smoking metal. "Lance!" he cried out hoarsely. "Lance!" His heart was pounding painfully, blood roaring in his ears.

The heat signature wasn't moving.

Keith grunted with exertion, flinging himself down the side of the mountain of bent metal at breakneck speed. His newly-repaired jetpack whined with overuse but he ignored it, throwing himself heedlessly off the wreckage towards Lance.

Finally Lance came into view and Keith's heart almost stopped.

Lance was stretched out on a flat piece of wreckage, one hand resting on his stomach and the other wrapped in a sling. He still wore his Blue Paladin armour, but it was scratched and blackened. One arm, the one in the sling, was black with blood from the shoulder down. A sob died halfway up his throat.

Then Keith was kneeling over Lance, scooping him into his arms - he didn't even remember closing the rest of the distance.  
Lance's face was drawn and greyish, with purple bruise-like shadows under his eyes. His lips had cracked and were bleeding, and the harsh wind had scrubbed some parts of his face raw. He was criss-crossed everywhere with small cuts and lacerations from shards and splinters of debris. Keith held him tightly, briefly pressing his forehead to Lance's in a moment of sheer, overwhelming pain, eyes screwed shut tight against the scream building in his chest.

That was all the sentimentality he allowed himself. Moving quickly, Keith checked Lance's pulse. Slow, weaker than it should have been, but still there. Carefully he poked around under the dressing of Lance's arm injury, before realising that the only thing holding Lance's singed left arm together was the debris lodged close to the bone. Keith tightened the tourniquet to prevent any more blood from leaking out of the wound. Finally he dribbled cool water into Lance's parted mouth from his canteen. Lance coughed, choking slightly on the liquid, but managed to get it down. His eyes squeezed shut, then cracked open slowly.

"Keith?" he murmured, eyes unfocused. His voice was nothing more than a slurred, grating whisper.

"It's okay, Lance, you're going to be okay," answered Keith, carefully lifting Lance into a sitting position and draping him over his shoulders. Then he got up, Lance slumped over his shoulders, and called out to Black. His lion landed in front of him, lowering her colossal head and opening her mouth.

Keith adjusted Lance's dead weight and walked into his lion.

"Guys?" he said into his receiver. "I've got him. He's alive."

Keith had no choice but to hold Lance on his lap as he flew Black home.

Lance was semi-conscious, brow furrowed, sometimes mumbling in Spanish. Keith's chest was so full of relief on the way home that he wanted to cry. Instead, he pushed Black faster and kept a cautious check on Lance's pulse, keeping two fingers on the side of his throat.

Thing was, Lance was getting colder. His head lolled against Keith's elbow, expression tight with pain. Keith tenderly brushed his sweaty hair back from his face.

"Don't worry, Lance," Keith whispered, hugging him closer. "We're almost there."

He watched as the distance between his lion and the Castle got smaller. The Black Lion coursed up to the ship and into its hangar. Keith landed, let the controls go dark and heaved Lance across his shoulder again.

"One last effort, sharpshooter," he said with a tired grin. Then he walked out of Black's mouth, supporting Lance carefully on his back.


End file.
